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..lt <br /> Everett Fire Department Strategic Plan—2013 <br /> Figure 1:Citizens Forum Planning Priorities <br /> Low Priority < > High Priority <br /> Technical competence of fire dept.personnel 5.29 <br /> Reliable facilities and equipment 4.83 <br /> Maintaining the existing response times 3.38 ' <br /> Compassion/empathy,and customer service 2.91 <br /> Improving the response time 2.86 <br /> Keeping costs and tax rates low 1.93 <br /> Expanding the types of services offered 1.50 <br /> The planning priorities were presented as a forced ranking of costs, response times, training, and <br /> customer service, among other dimensions. The respondents assigned a value to each of the dimensions ' <br /> given them. The scale allows the respondents to assign the highest value to the most important <br /> dimension (a seven), a value of one to the lowest priority dimension, with no value given to dimensions ' <br /> a respondent did not feel was an appropriate priority.There were several respondents who opted not to <br /> score the "Expanding the types of services offered" dimension, indicating no interest in seeing services I <br /> expanded. Respondents were also given the opportunity to add a dimension where he/she felt one was <br /> missing. None of the respondents added a dimension to the planning priorities. , <br /> The citizen forum participants prefer a high state of readiness to respond to emergencies and <br /> satisfaction with the existing response times provided by the department. The remaining dimensions <br /> were given a relatively lower value. During discussion, it was clear that that compassion and empathy <br /> were assumed values by incumbent personnel, so was not a concern. There was high satisfaction with <br /> the current response times and the services provided,so there was no strongly held belief that response <br /> times needed to be improved or new services offered, nor was there a belief that keeping the cost low , <br /> was an over-riding concern. This should not be viewed as endorsement of increased costs, but simply <br /> that maintenance of existing services and response times are valued higher than keeping the costs low. ' <br /> The citizens represented were then asked to identify the most important functions and services the fire <br /> department provides based on the list of services currently provided, and rank those services. In this <br /> Page 6 <br />